Orden Ogan – Gunmen

Just two years ago, Orden Ogan released their most popular album so far, “Ravenhead”. Now, the band is back with a new release. It is easy to hear that Seeb Levermann and his guys have found their style because “Gunmen” has much in common with “To The End” and “Ravenhead”. The band, however, did work on the fine tuning. In 2017, this means that the songwriting is the most straight-forward yet. Although the average playing time of the songs is between five and six minutes, the arrangements are kept in moderate size. The songs, all too often, return to their main theme, which is, however, varied in many ways. This makes the song very catchy, although they are quite fast.

The result are some great tunes. Gunman, the most bombastic track in years, Vampire In Ghost Town and Ashen Rain are all very good examples of irresistible catchiness. Excellent is also Come With Me To The Other Side, which is the album’s best track and opens with an intro featuring Liv Kristine (ex-Leave’s Eyes).

Where there is light, there is shadow: Especially in the second half of the album, there are some tracks we could’ve done without. The Face Of Silence, Down Here and One Last Chance are some of the most boring songs the band ever has ever written. The final, almost 9 minutes long Finis Coronat Opus in contrast is quite good but way too long. Reducing it to 5 or 6 minutes and keeping the crucial parts would have made the song much better.

Orden Ogan remain the hopefuls of the German (melodic) Metal scene. Although I personally like the predecessors better, the guys from Arnsberg, North-Rhine Westphalia, show once more that they can compose songs on a constantly high level. Keep an eye on them!